


Ennui, Cocaine, & Skittles

by clickyourheels



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Anxiety, Depressed Louis, Depression, Drug Use, Fluff, Hurt Harry, Hurt Louis, Implied Past Louis/Harry, Lets pretend Zayn never left, M/M, Made in the A.M. Tour, Nihilism, One Direction (band) - Freeform, Panic Attacks, Second Person Perspective, Set during Made In The AM era, Substance Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, Tiny reference to rohypnol, Worried Harry, Worried Zayn, canon AU, larry stylinson - Freeform, one direction - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:02:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23448217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickyourheels/pseuds/clickyourheels
Summary: ennui/ɒnˈwiː/nouna feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.+“No one ever tells you how low you can fall when you climb so high.”
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 64





	Ennui, Cocaine, & Skittles

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is a sad one, dudes. Please be mindful of tags and excuse me if you spot a typo, some of this was written in the early hours of the AM...
> 
> Follow me on Twitter, @_lovelikeharry
> 
> <3

_Louis’ been dead for_ _a long time. Can you believe it?_

_He’s been rotting in the ground for years and years. Can you believe it?_

_He’s been worm food for as long as he's been alive; that boy was destined for the grave the minute he was put into the world. Can you believe it?_

  
  


These are the words people will say about you, the day you drop. The day you do the world a favour and rid yourself of a beating, bleeding heart. The day you tie the noose; the day you slit your throat; the day you choke on a plethora of sedatives and opioids; or, more simply, the day you die without meaning to. The day the world decides you don’t have a choice in your way out. An accident. A mistake. A _camisado_. 

That sounds nice, you think. More dramatic, more Shakespearean. Romeo’s mother died from a broken heart upon learning her precious son was dead. Death by heartbreak. You liked the sound of that. There was the issue, though, that you’d been heartbroken for a long time, now. And you were unfortunately still breathing. Bummer. 

Sometimes you wake up after too-little sleep in a too-big bed and you don’t know if your eyes are open or closed because you struggle to tell the difference between light and dark. And it’s the same every morning, (noon) you panic for a while, wrestle your inner demons who laugh at the prospect that you might be _blind_ . You might be _dead_ . Then you decide that maybe being blind wouldn’t be so bad because you’d never have to see the disappointed stares you got from management every time you opened your fat mouth. You wouldn’t be forced to look at your poor mother’s face when she sees you for the first time in 5 months, and you evidently haven’t gotten any better. Or your fans, who look at you with tears in their eyes and a frown on their face because they’ve realised you’re not the Louis they thought you’d be. You’re not him, and you’re not sure you’ve ever been. You’re not sure of a lot of things, nowadays. But the best thing, the very best thing about being blind would be that you would no longer have to see yourself the way other people see you. You could pretend you are handsome. You are normal. You wouldn’t have to be _you_ , anymore. 

You momentarily consider taking your eyes out with the scissors that are lying on the nightstand before thinking better of it. 

You’re not really sure why you do it. Why you lock yourself in a room with your own head and force yourself to numb it all. Force of habit, you suppose. 

You used to love performing. Used to love the way your voice would carry through an arena filled with thousands of your adoring fans. You would flourish under the lights, grin at all the attention and praise you would receive every time you held a note. 

Nowadays the light just made you hot and the attention made you sick.

That was another thing that made you different from the other boys. Performing would make them happy. They’d come off stage lax and satiated, smiling from ear to ear, clearly pleased with their performance. You’d come off stage exhausted and angry and you’d race to the shitty small bus bathroom and turn the shower on, puking down the drain and allowing yourself to be drenched in water and humiliation and shame.

You were sitting on top of the tour bus once, not too long ago, with Harry, your feet dangling off of the edge beside the ladder you’d used to get up there. And you’d smoke cigarette after cigarette while Harry would politely hide his coughs from you. 

“You smoke a lot, these days,” he’d point out, quietly, shivering from the cold and breath visible in the night air.

“Mm,” you’d hum. 

“You’ll die. _”_

“Hopefully.”

And he’d look at you with silent desperation, his head tilted to the side, eyes piercing yours in a blur of _bluegreenbluegreenbluegreen_ and his mind going a mile a minute trying to piece the puzzle together.

“Do… Do you really want that? _”_ And his voice would trail off at the end, regretting the question as soon as it fell from his lips.

“I really don’t know.”

He’d shake his head, and pry the cigarette from your numb fingers, letting it fall to the ground in slow motion. And you’d watch, annoyed, but too tired to strike up the energy to question his logic.

_“_ I have a whole pack, you know,” you’d mumble

“You do,” he nodded. “However, I’m going to assume you won't be smoking cigarettes anymore. Not if you want to prove to me that you want to live.”

And you didn’t. You never smoked a cigarette ever again, after that.

  
  


+

  
  


The next day you tried coke for the first time instead. 

You had a day off. A rest, they said. As if you could ever rest. You’d marched up to Harry, who was quietly reading in his bunk, and you’d told him you’d quit smoking.

“That’s great, Lou! I’m so proud of you,” he’d beamed. 

You only smiled, knowing that he wouldn’t be so happy if he only knew what you were swapping tobacco for. 

It wasn’t hard to find what you needed. You had money, so much it made you feel ill. All you needed to do was find a sleazy club and sweet release would be yours! 

It hurt the first time. It felt like your gums and nostrils were on fire and you could have sworn it had gotten in your eyes. You were mildly concerned that the dodgy dealer was perhaps _too_ dodgy and he’d actually sold you a baggie of washing powder because surely it wasn’t supposed to feel like this? it was _everywhere._ On the mirror you’d used as a tray, on your clothes, in your hair, under your fingernails. You looked down at the white-speckled mirror in your hands and took in your appearance. Bloodshot, leaking eyes, a nose rubbed raw, with snot slowly trickling down, lips chapped and pale. You were hardly a sight for sore eyes, and this was only your first time using. You were strangely excited to see how fucked up you could make yourself. It was a personal challenge, a goal. 

After the pain came the buzz. It felt vaguely like an itch behind your eyelids, but it was also good. Like the feeling you get right before you fall asleep. You felt calm, relaxed. Content! Imagine that; Louis Tomlinson feeling content! You laughed at the situation. You were in the world’s biggest boy band and quite literally you had everything you’d ever wanted and yet you needed a little white powder to make you feel content. You felt selfish, but also powerful. Because the riches and the jewels, they meant _nothing_ to you, just a reminder you were in your prime and everything would go downhill from there. Your lines were sloppy and uneven, but your brain was fuzzy and colourful, and the air tasted like skittles and you felt like you were flying. 

You didn’t know how you ended up outside of Harry’s hotel room, only that one minute you were laughing hysterically at your grim reflection and the next it was somehow 3:45 in the morning you were knocking rapidly at his door.

“Louis?” He rubbed his eyes with one hand, the other combing through unruly curls. He was wearing a Rolling Stones T shirt and boxers, and he only had one sock on. He must’ve been asleep, Louis thought guiltily.

“Harry! Harry, my best friend! My lovely, sweet Harry! _Hellooooooo!”_

“God, how much did you drink?” He wrinkled his nose, putting an arm around your shoulders and pulling you inside. 

You laughed, bouncing on Harry’s bed, a pleasant thrum bursting through your veins. You actually weren’t drunk. You were high as a fucking kite but he didn’t need to know that. Minor details.

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is I’m here now! With you!”

Harry stared up at you incredulously, half amused, half scared.

“ _Get down, Louis.”_

And you did. You pouted your bottom lip and fell back down, and sat indian style on his bed, picking at a hangnail. You’d made him angry. Stupid, _stupid_ Louis! You hadn’t meant to upset him! That was wrong, wrong, _wrong!_

He sat next to you, begrudgingly, turning on a lamp next to you, and you whimpered in pain. You didn’t know how to tell him it was _toomuchtoobright_ without worrying him. So you stayed silent.

There was a pause in the air and Louis could no longer taste skittles. He tasted sulphur and nitrate and it was all _wrong._

“Did you go out with the boys?” Harry asked after a moment had passed. You debated lying, but couldn’t bring yourself to explain why you’d come home without them. You shook your head.

“You were by yourself?”

A nod.

“Why, Louis?”

A shrug.

“For fucks sake, you can talk to me, you know!” He shrieked, features softening only when he saw you shrivel your face up in pain at his tone of voice. He pushed your head down onto his shoulder and pressed a kiss to your sweaty fringe. You hummed.

“Fine,” he murmured. “I won’t ask any more questions.” 

“I haven’t smoked a cigarette since the bus.”

You could feel him smile down at you. It pained you to be so sly but in that moment you just wanted him to not be suspicious anymore. 

“Really? You? The same Louis who smokes a pack a day? _That_ Louis hasn’t smoked in 24 hours?” He chuckled, ruffling your hair.

“Yep.”

“Good. Good boy.”

He looked at you with a gleam in his eye that took you back 5 years. It took you back back _back_ to 16 and 18, to secret kisses under covers and hand holding under the dining table. You felt so guilty knowing that in the end you would only hurt him, but for now he was happy, and in turn that made you happy. As happy as you could be when you’re also severely depressed and kind of want to die.

“I love it when you call me that,” you whispered into his collarbone.

“I know you do.”

You listened to the steady beat of Harry’s heart and felt yourself tire, despite your own heart which was thrumming like a hummingbird. You were fucked. You were _fucked._

“Sometimes,” you slurred, focusing on the way Harry’s thumb was brushing slow strokes on your shoulder, “sometimes I get bored of being alive. I just don’t see the point. We’ve already achieved everything. It all goes downhill from here. I just don’t see it anymore.”

“Ennui.”

“Pardon?”

“Ennui. The feeling of total dissatisfaction and loss of direction.”

You liked that. _Ennui._ It gave your feelings a label. Made you feel normal. Like you weren’t all alone in your thoughts. Made the black in your head lighten just a bit. 

That was before. 

Now, it was 5 months down the line (no pun intended) and you were a mess. You were using every day and you were a borderline alcoholic. You never awoke before noon and the boys constantly had to explain why you didn’t attend interviews anymore. You didn’t care, though. You didn’t need them. You didn’t need anyone. You’d rather be high and have no friends, no career than be sober, and that was the way it was. Everything was _right, right, right!_

The incessant banging finally woke you from your slumber. You had a brief moment of _what the fuck is that noise_ before realising that there was a voice alongside the banging. That’s always fun.

“ _Louis open the fuck up before I knock this fucking door down!”_

_“I mean it, Louis. If you don’t open the door in 5 seconds I’m calling the lobby.”_

_“Louis what the fuck is your fucking problem you dickhead? You unbelievable, selfish prick!”_

Uh oh. That was Harry. Sweet, gentle, Harry. Harry who called you ‘babe’, and ‘dove’, and ‘good boy’. Harry who you _so_ adored was calling you every name under the sun and banging so hard on your door you were afraid of him breaking his damn wrist. This was all wrong. Wrong, wrong, _WRONGGGGGGG!_

Begrudgingly you stumbled to the door and tried to block out the siren-like screeches in your head. You tentatively opened the door to reveal a red faced, angry, _angry_ looking Harry. 

“Oops?” 

“Half an hour,” he spat, maliciously. “30 _fucking_ minutes. That’s all you had to manage! One stupid interview. You said you’d come. You fucking _said_ you’d come, Louis. You’ve let us all down, you utter prick! I can’t believe how selfish you are.” He ran his hands through his hair exasperatedly, jaw locked in a scowl. He looked you up and down with an expression that made you shrink under his gaze. “Fucking _look_ at you! You haven’t shaved, haven’t changed clothes since last night’s show, which, by the way, you sounded fucking _wank,_ and you quite clearly haven’t showered because you fucking stink. You haven’t even drawn the fucking blinds, Louis! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

The room span. It reminded you of the carnival your grandmother used to take you to. Back when you were a boy. Back when you still had time. Back before you fucked everything up.

“I mean, do you have _anything_ to say for yourself?”

You threw up on his shoes. 

  
  


+

  
  


You had somehow fallen back to sleep, crumpled in a pile on the floor. You were awakened by the sound of the shower running, and a fuming Harry was angrily walking towards you. Oh shit-

“Get. Up.”

“M’comfy.”

“Get. _The fuck._ Up.” Harry gritted, kicking your shin not too lightly. Fucking ouch?!

You didn’t budge.

“Right then,” suddenly you were being heaved into his arms, and he was whisking you away into the bathroom. The lights were on and it was much too bright. Much, much, _much too bright_.

“What the fuck are you doing, you psycho?” You squawked, desperately trying to wriggle out of Harry’s strong grasp. But it was a futile attempt. He was holding you too fucking tight.

“You need a damn shower, Louis. We have a show tonight. How long has it fucking been since you showered?”

Six days. 

“I don’t remember!” You hissed. 

“That’s too bad. You stink. It’s _embarrassing._ Maybe it’s better off that you flunked the interview,” he snarled, finally seating you down on the toilet, not before pressing down on your shoulders with his strong hands so you couldn’t escape.

You thought it was pretty rude of him to keep going on about your personal hygiene. I mean, clue is in the name. Personal. Aka, stop fucking telling me I smell bad because I already know and I don’t fucking care. A toothbrush was thrust into your mouth when you opened it to defend yourself, and the taste of the strong mint made you gag and heave. Harry was merciless, though, and apparently felt very content to use your teeth and tongue as an outlet for his anger. The bristles kept brushing your gag reflex and you feared you were going to throw up on Harry for the second time today, but soon enough he was telling you to spit the minty foam into the sink and he handed you some toilet paper to wipe away what had dribbled down your chin. You caught a glimpse of yourself in the cabinet mirror and you thought you looked like you had rabies. _Bitey, bitey!_

“Don’t come too close, Hazza! I might give you my _rrrrrrrabiesssssss_!” 

“You’re a pathetic mess,” he said. And you believed him. So why wouldn’t he just fucking leave?

All of a sudden he was undressing you, and you only stared at him as if he’d gone mad. Ironic. 

“Are we going to have sex, Harry?” You questioned, innocently, wrapping your arms around his neck. “You remember our sex, don’t you, Harry? You used to call me your good boy. And I was, wasn’t I? So good. So _fucking_ good!” You laughed at his uncomfortable expression, moving your face down to his ear and whispering, “but I’m not good anymore, am I? I’m bad, bad bad! You should spank me. You should _definitely_ do that.”

He looked at you with a blank expression. His deep green eyes were cold and indifferent. It stung more than any drug. And you relished in the pain and self loathing it evoked. 

“Just get in the shower, Louis.” 

You surprised yourself, because you actually did. 

He came in with you, still fully clothed and let you rest your head on the cool tile while he washed your body and shampooed your hair for you. For a moment his touch felt like cocaine. Felt like cigarettes. Felt like alcohol. Felt like the taste of skittles. His hands on your body reminded you of a simpler time, and you felt so vulnerable it made your jaw lock and your eyelids itch. Your hands shook with the overwhelming need to use. It was then that it struck you; Harry just thought you had an alcohol problem. He didn’t even _know_ about the coke. You tasted the bile on your tongue and knew you needed to get out of that fucking shower. 

You turned the water off and cleared your throat so Harry would get the hint and leave you alone with your poison. He shivered and wrapped you in a towel, and held you by your arms as he led you to your bed. You muttered a vague thank you as he opened the covers and allowed you to crawl inside. Harry was sopping wet himself; his nice interview clothes soaked through. You briefly wondered if he would get in trouble with Caroline, your stylist, but the worry dissipated soon enough. Harry stripped down to his boxers and tied his hair up into a bun, holding the elastic between his teeth while he gathered the unruly strands into a collective. He was beautiful like this. Beautiful despite being angry and disappointed and _tired._ He reminded you of how _not_ beautiful you were. You _were_ a pathetic mess, after all. 

He climbed inside the covers with you and wrapped calloused warm hands around your shivering frame. Your veins were beginning to tingle from withdrawals but it was almost okay because Harry was here, smelling like water and coconut something so discernibly Harry. You nuzzled into his neck and allowed yourself a moment of clarity.

“Management said this is your last chance,” he whispered. You shrugged against his body and willed the tremors away.

“Do you understand, Lou? If you miss one more interview they’re setting up a meeting to discuss your placement in the band. Do you understand what that even means?” He rambled into your damp hair. Your damp, _clean_ hair that Harry had washed for you. 

“I’m not stupid, H. I understand.”

“And are you going to do as they say?”

“Maybe.”

He sat up, swearing under his breath, pulling on a tendril of hair that had fallen out of his bun and into his eyes. “I don’t even know who you are, anymore. What happened to you?”

You paused for thought, or maybe dramatic effect. See? _Shakespearian._

“Ennui.”

  
  


+

  
  


You did as they said. You attended interviews, sang your parts better at shows, even sent out a few tweets to your fans asking how their day had been. 

That didn’t mean you were better. No, anyone who dared to look hard enough would see the cracks in your disposition. You were a caricature of what they wanted you to be. You were a cover boy for Hollywood and Vine and you despised the puppet you’d become. You were a fabrication; a superstition. A burlesque in the flesh.

Every time you flew from country to country you were forced to flush your personal poison down the toilet so the big bad coppers wouldn’t sniff you out and expose your dirty little habit. It would pain you to see your beloved swirl down the bowl in a motion picture of woe and betrayal. But you did it. You did it because you were smart. Because you were in control. You could even stop if you wanted to. You just didn’t _want_ to.

  
  


You hadn’t spoken to your band mates in weeks. Not really. Only when they played up The Perfect Boy Band Agenda in interviews and onstage. And everytime a small part of you hoped that it was real. Because Liam was laughing at a joke you’d made and Niall was recalling a story of something stupid you’d done a while back and surely, _surely,_ they couldn’t be that good at faking it?

Turns out they could be. Because as soon as the cameras cut they were giving you the cold shoulder and ignoring your existence. In the private jets the seats came in twos. Liam and Zayn, and Harry and Niall. You were forced to sit by yourself. An unspoken rule between the boys, apparently. Occasionally Harry would glance back at you with a pitied expression but other than that you were completely on your own. 

No one asked where you were going as you snuck out to club after club on your own, nobody cared enough. And when you collapsed on the floor next to your bunk at 4 in the morning because you were fucked up on coke and molly and you were about 90% sure you’d been roofied and you didn’t have the energy to stand up any longer, there was a definite hesitation from the other boys who were playing Halo in the lounge to come and help you. 

But then there was Harry, clinging to your back and breathing heavily into the nape of your neck. Mumbling disjointed sentences of “fuck you,” and “can’t do this,” and “look at who you’re hurting” before he placed you into your bunk and stormed off without a second glance. 

Second came Liam, who stuck a hand into your bunk and grabbed a fistful of your hair, breath hot and angry on your face. “I don’t know _what_ is going on with you and Harry, but that boy cries at fucking _Love Actually_ and has a heart that will _not_ be broken by some fucked up, mediocrely talented alcoholic. So get fucking sober or I swear to _God_ I will kick you out of this band myself!” He roughly ripped the curtain shut and muttered something about Louis being a “fucking lowlife”, and joined Harry and the rest of the boys back into the lounge.

Then, there was another presence outside your bunk curtain. It wasn’t Harry. The breaths were too deep, and it couldn’t have been any of the other boys because, well, they hated you. With a grunt and a struggle you managed to heave back the curtain and you were met with someone who just made your heart clench with guilt and disappointment. 

Paddy.

Kind Paddy. Paddy who used to piggyback you everywhere and ruffle your hair and kiss you on the temple when you’d go to him for a cuddle. Because he wasn’t just a bodyguard to the band. He was a father figure and seeing him look at you the way he was made you feel about 10 inches tall. 

“No one ever tells you do they, kid?” He sighed, brushing back your fringe and staring into your cold, lifeless eyes. “No one ever tells you how lonely it gets. When you’re all on your own. And you think you can hide from it. But the hiding just adds to the loneliness. And the freedom you did it for in the first place turns to agoraphobia. No one ever tells you how low you can fall when you climb so high.” He doesn’t tear his eyes away from yours and you are filled with the overwhelming urge to cry. You curse yourself the minute you allow the wet hot tears to hit the pillow beneath you. 

“Please,” you begged, your voice containing the strength of a mouse. “Please go. Please don’t look at me when I’m like this.”

You thought that maybe this was your lowest point.

“Tell me,” he carried on, shushing your whimpers and pleas of mercy. “Tell me, how do you escape loneliness, when escaping is the one thing that led you to its mouth to begin with?” He gave you one more sad look before leaving you with a heart too heavy for your frail body, and your vision blurred from coke and tears and shame. 

  
  


+

  
  


Heroin was different from cocaine. Whereas coke made you alert, powerful and hyper aware, shooting up calmed you down, made you feel like you could breathe, and in hindsight it might have been the reason you decided to call Harry. 

Your phone rang twice before Harry’s slow diction was plugging your ears with a tired sounding “y’ello?”

“Harry. Harry. _Harryharryharryyyyy.”_

“Why are you calling, Louis? Where are you?”

You paused in thought, then realised you were actually in the bus lounge. After the heroin you realised that it didn’t quite make the hatred for yourself go away so you came back onto the bus to get some peace and quiet. The rest of the band and crew were in their respective hotel rooms but you couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping in a cold, big bed in a room that felt too expensive and too _fake._ At least the bus gave you a sense of home. 

You hadn’t meant to take them, the tablets.

Truly. You were just looking for some whiskey or vodka when you found them. Zayn’s sleeping tablets. You had assumed that since they were on the bus then Zayn wouldn’t be sleeping. So in your fucked up state you decided taking more than enough for the both of you was the most logical thing to do. 

More than enough meaning 3 quarters of a bottle.

Oh yeah. And the heroin probably wasn’t helping.

“I’m in hell,” you slurred, clutching the phone between your fingers which were becoming more and more blurry.

“Louis, what have you done?”

You giggled.

“ _Louis_ ,” Harry’s voice pleaded, angry and scared and _confused_ , “what have you taken?”

“Sleepy. Sleepy, sleepy sleepy.” The room was spinning but at the same time it felt nice to lie on the floor, to be at peace with your mania.

“ _Fuck_ , Louis,” Harry cried, and you could hear his breathing beginning to labour. “Sleeping tablets, is that it? Shit, where _are_ you?”

You had one last moment of fear before your vision fully clouded over, and in your near comatose state you somehow managed to mumble one word. “Bus.”

When you were a child there was a huge oak tree that grew in the field not too far from your house. One day you had asked your mother how old that tree was. She told you it must have been hundreds and hundreds of years old. And you’d grinned up at her with your two front teeth missing and chocolate smeared around your mouth and told her that you would grow up to be even older than the big oak tree.

In your last moments you’d wondered whether or not that tree was still standing today, or if Man had cut it down in all its glory to feed the ever growing consumption and demand that society proclaimed. It was a damn cruel world and you felt blessed to finally be free from it. 

Apparently you had died for about 30 seconds. Harry had frantically searched for a pulse when he found you face down on the floor in the bus lounge. Your eyes felt like lead when you finally opened them to see Harry looking down at you with pure anger and sadness and panic, and that’s when you noticed something prodding at your gag reflex. Now, Harry’s fingers had been inside you many times before, but never _quite_ like this.

Too soon for gay sex analogies? Sorry.

You briefly wondered what God must think, if he was in fact real, staring down at you limp in Harry’s lap, while the aforementioned boy in question stuck his shaking fingers down your throat and mumbled empty promises of “gonna get you better, I promise,” maybe it was fate. You were always going to end up here, and honestly, living to be hundreds and hundreds of years old just sounded exhausting. 

Maybe God would take pity, and open the gates for you. Perhaps he would look at the vomit covering your chin and the carpet and Harry’s sleeve and think, “He’s gone through enough.”

Harry didn’t tell anyone. He didn’t phone an ambulance, didn’t tell the boys or management, just kept it to himself because reiterating it would make it _real_. Maybe he understood, now. Why you did it. Because maybe not being able to differentiate between reality and fable wasn’t such a bad thing. 

He kept an eye on you, though. Never let you out of his sight and when the day came that he finally questioned you, he just looked at you with indifference. He’d become numb, too. You always were selfish. It wasn’t enough to destroy yourself, you had to bring down your most loved one, too. For the company, you told yourself.

“It’s never been just alcohol, has it?” He asked you one day, climbing into your bunk and gazing out the window at people who were able to go out by themselves sans the fear that their betrothed was dead in a ditch somewhere. People had it so _easy._

It wasn’t really a question but you answered him anyway. “No.”

He laughed, actually laughed, and the sound tugged at your heart and made you wish for death all over again. “I saw the scabs on your arm. Heroin. And before that, your nose was always so red and I used to tell myself that you just had a cold. But no one has a runny nose for 5 months straight, Lou. You’re dying. You’re skin and fucking bone, Louis. And I tell you this, and you look at me like it’s a challenge. Like you’re proud of yourself? _Are_ you proud of yourself? Is that why you do it?” He rubbed at his eyes and you finally saw him for the first time in months. Not the glamorised, perfect Harry you’d fabricated in your mind; the real deal. His hair was greasy and untamed and his face was sickly and pale, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. _Well_ , you thought, _welcome to my world._

There was a silence that hung in the air like a noose. You breathed out a sigh of reluctance that melted into what felt like failure, but might have been acceptance.

“I do it because I can’t _feel_ anymore. Because everything feels like water around my head and silence becomes really fucking loud when you’re on your own. Because I don’t see the point anymore. Because everything used to taste like skittles and now it tastes like cotton wool in my mouth and I feel like I’m _drowning._ ” You were crying now, and you didn’t know whether to be relieved or offended that Harry didn’t try to comfort you. 

Then, “ _skittles?”_

There was a ghost of a smile that lingered on Harry’s lips, and you subconsciously mirrored it despite the tears that were steadily trickling down your cheeks. 

“Ennui.” And that was all you had to say. Your special word had saved you once again.

“If you can’t feel, then let me feel for you. If you can’t see, then let me be your eyes,” there were tentative hands on your knee and cheek and you felt safer than you had felt in months. 

  
  


It got worse before it got better. When tour was over you had no reason to try, and when you came home to your too big, too empty, too _expensive_ house in London after false promises of rest and self care to a worried Harry, the first thing you did was snort five lines and chase your self pity with a bottle of Jack. You were watching old reruns of _Keeping Up With The Kardashians_ and you absentmindedly wondered if people looked at you the way they looked at the Kardashians. A mere shadow of the person you once were, a car crash of a person. And yet they can’t look away. Go figure.

Crying with your head shoved down a toilet bowl actually isn’t the most humiliating predicament you’ve found yourself in. But still, it’s not exactly something you’d brag about at parties. The shirt on your back sticks to the cold sheen of sweat that covers your whole body, and words cannot describe the feeling you get when you hear a knock at your door. 

Pique comes pretty close, though. 

Your double vision is blurry and the blood pouring out of your nose is taking priority in your focus, but through squinted eyes you can make out that the figure standing in your doorframe is Zayn. 

You can’t make out the expression on his face but the words that come out of his mouth point you in the direction that it’s probably not good. 

“What the _fuck_ are you on?!”

“M’so fuckin’ sober, dude,” you manage to slur out, slumping down onto the sofa and trying your damndest not to choke on a hiccup.

_God._

“Yeah. Right. I’m staging a fucking intervention. This has got to fucking stop!” The Zayn-Voice says. 

You roll your eyes. “Why are you even in my _house?”_

You feel a dip in the sofa next to you and you turn your tiny body to face the blurry shape. 

“Harry called me,” he sighed, “said he was worried.”

And he couldn’t fucking come here himself?

As Chuck Palahnuik once said, _‘No matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.’_

Seems pretty apt. 

Zayn suddenly grabs your face and forces you to look at him through half lidded eyes. “Is this who you wanted to be when you were little? When you auditioned for _X Factor_ all those years ago did you dream of this day? What about 5 year old Louis? Do you think he would want this? What actually are you trying to achieve?” And then he’s sighing again, and rubbing softly at the red mark he’s made on your jaw where he grabbed you too hard, mumbling soft apologies. 

Your heart sinks.

Somewhere inside of you something shifts. You’re tired. _So fucking tired._ And the faces on the TV are blending into one big scary monster and the voices are beginning to sound like white noise and you just feel so _embarrassed._ You can’t hold back your sobs and soon you have your head in Zayn’s lap and then an amount of time has passed and there are 3 more people around you. It felt like 5 minutes but it was probably an hour. There are hands combing through your hair and dabbing at your bloody nose and forcing you to drink salty water and you’re wondering if it’s a punishment until you’re suddenly gagging and someone’s already there with a bucket and a hand stroking your back soothingly. Then it hits you.

They’re taking care of you.

Forcing you to throw up the contents of your stomach and tying your fringe back into a tiny ponytail so that the cool air of your house can hit your sweaty forehead. They’re shushing you and calming you down and suddenly you’re not crying from embarrassment anymore.

“You’re gonna be okay, Louis.”

“We’ve got you.”

“We love you, Louis.”

“You have to stop now, Louis.”

Loved. You feel loved.

  
  
  


+

  
  


It took years and years for you to fully feel better again. Every once in a while you would taste sulphur and nitrate and cotton wool, and panic would bubble up inside of you and the water would seep in your brain, and you’d have one thought, _ennui._ It took AA and NA meetings, relapse after relapse, high after high. It took withdrawals that felt more like camisados, and endless begging for just one last hit. You realised soon enough that sometimes feeling like you were dying was a sign of redemption. 

  
  


Paddy was right. No one ever tells you how scary it is out in the open. You were a wounded gazelle lying in a field just _waiting_ for the lions to come. People somehow fail to mention that part. The loneliness that simmers throughout your high, waiting to fully emerge and gobble you up whole. It happened. The lions pounced and in the end you stared down the barrel of the gun with a shining sense of acceptance of your own weakness. You surrendered to the monster, but you didn’t realise the monster was you.

But then there was Harry. Patient, quiet Harry who would kiss your scars and pet your hair and love you despite the beautiful disaster you’d become. And it pained you to be so reliant, to be so needy until one day it dawned on you that maybe it was okay because maybe Harry needed to be needed. You needed each other the way fire needed oxygen. It was at those moments when the air would feel a little clearer and a faint hint of skittles would dance on your tongue. He was always there, right by your side, and he never faltered.

You showed him the oak tree. It weirdly felt very intimate despite the fact that you were literally just showing him a fucking tree. But it was more than that. It was hope. It was second chances and whispered forgiveness and light at the end of a very long tunnel. Turns out you didn’t need substance abuse to feel whole anymore, you just needed a curly haired angel who allowed you to break, because he was more than happy to put you back together again. 

_fin._

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
